So are the Flames anti-European or what?
 

Why wasn't this post titled PARDY TIME?
 

Lack of dry Coshian wit, probably.
 

Not sure about that second line, but the defense looks good.
 

Any news on Bertuzzi? With the way he took that shot to the boot I was thinkin broken ankle. Please tell me I'm wrong, and that it's worse.
 

I really hope Bertuzzi is OK; I think it's critical that Keenan and the rest of the team get a good handle on what kind of a contributor he is (or, more to the point, isn't).

If he's out for a month, then not only does the team have a bit of an excuse there for underperforming, but his return will not be the cure that they're hoping for.
 

matt: I'll ask my three "burning" questions (yes, terrible pun) straight to you:

1) Does the obvious improvement on the second, third and fourth lines (in some cases, addition by subtraction) line make up for the loss of Tanguay and a "hole" on the LW in terms of a truly top-end guy?

2) Is the defense "mobile" enough? Seems like a lot of those guys are from the same tree (Giordano stands out as very unique when compared to the guys on the 2nd and 3rd pairs).

3) How long does McE as back-up goalie last? Will Keenan demand a vetern backup at some point?

Bottom line for me is that the loss of Tanguay is going to be felt a lot more than some Flames fans want to admit.....good player who took a lot of unwarranted flak.
 

Warrener would be a good fit and would be in the top 4 for the Oilers. Would they upgrade and grab him?
 

Man, a Staios-Warrener pair would be the greatest use of $5.2 million dollars ever.
 

hbomb: Here's my thoughts, in no particular order:

3) Hopefully Mackle is here for the whole season, hopefully playing 20 games (at least). I think there has been some recognition that short term veterans can't solve all problems this year (Pardy getting the nod over the vets, for example), so my hopes are high on this.

1) It depends on what level of competition the second line is able to face and overcome, but probably not at EV. I expect we'll have two decent PP units this year and we'll make up at least some of the lost ground there.

2) Mobile enough? No. Hell no. We have picked up some speed in our forwards, however, and that could open up more passing options in our own zone. That's about as much as I can hope for this year.

anonymous: By Warrener being a good fit, I assume you mean overpaid and injury prone. He'd be a great "linemate" for Moreau and Souray.
 

Bottom line for me is that the loss of Tanguay is going to be felt a lot more than some Flames fans want to admit.....good player who took a lot of unwarranted flak.

Preaching to the choir.
 

Are you thinking Giordano is going to play top minutes with Phaneuf or was the layout just random?
 

Random, basically -- certainly not trying to anoint Gio as a top pair guy. It's gonna work something like:

PP#1: Phaneuf - Aucoin
PP#2: Phaneuf - Giordano (these 2 may be reversed)

PK#1: Sarich - Regehr
PK#2: Phaneuf - ????

EV#1A: Phaneuf - Gio
EV#1B: Regehr - Sarich
EV#3: Aucoin - JV - Pardy (pick 2)
 

matt: Phaneuf with Giordano seems like all the eggs in one basket in terms of mobility (skating with the puck, I mean - this Oiler fan's view is that those two guys would be the best out of the Flames top six at that particular skill).

Wouldn't Aucoin with Phaneuf at ES make more sense, with Vandermeer and Giordano as a very strong (at least IMO) 3rd set?

Regehr/Sarich is a given. In terms of "shutdown" sets, that's as elite as it gets, even if one thinks that you could get a guy almost as good as Sarich for about 1-1.5 million less. Or, in the case of one Kurt Sauer, a little less than half price.....
 

Preaching to the choir.

I've had to hear for the last month about how much the Flames have improved their depth, Kent. And it's true.

The fact is though, they replaced Nolan with Bertuzzi, Huselius with Cammalleri, and Tanguay with....Rene Bourque?

The first two trade-offs are likely a wash (Nolan > Bertuzzi but Cammalleri > Huselius), but man....dealing Tanguay for no immediate return doesn't strike me as a move made by a team planning on winning right away.

Then again, maybe considering that the big four plus Langkow are locked down for the long-term, Sutter thought he could set the team back on the "cycle" a year or two and come out ahead in the end. Who knows what the thinking was on that one....all I know is that it's likely a net loss in the short term.
 

aucoin and phaneuf started the season together last year and it didn't work out. not that the solution was any better (phaneuf - eriksson) but it got aucoin's minutes down to a productive 10-12 per night.

kent has pointed out that in pre-season, aucoin's been looking bad. i think that if he's kept to 3rd pairing TOI, he'll still be an asset (albeit expensive). teaming him up with phaneuf at 20+ minutes does not seem sensible to me at all....
 

aucoin and phaneuf started the season together last year and it didn't work out. not that the solution was any better (phaneuf - eriksson) but it got aucoin's minutes down to a productive 10-12 per night.

kent has pointed out that in pre-season, aucoin's been looking bad. i think that if he's kept to 3rd pairing TOI, he'll still be an asset (albeit expensive). teaming him up with phaneuf at 20+ minutes does not seem sensible to me at all....

Ok then, flip Vandermeer and Aucoin then. I seem to remember Vandermeer and Phaneuf working together OK last year at times down the stretch, and Giordano's strengths may be able to offset some of the weaknesses in Aucoin's game at this point.

Giordano may be fully capable of top-four minutes with Phaneuf. But could that lead to having an "exposed" third pairing with Aucoin/Vandermeer?

Or maybe, just maybe, should Regehr/Sarich not be such a given as a pair, and do the Flames potentially investigate playing one of those two with Phaneuf's partner? That would be thinking outside the box based on previous Flames tendencies, but maybe that's the direction they're going to need to look at some point.
 

I've had to hear for the last month about how much the Flames have improved their depth, Kent. And it's true.

The fact is though, they replaced Nolan with Bertuzzi, Huselius with Cammalleri, and Tanguay with....Rene Bourque?

I lamented all this stuff awhile back. At this point, Im just trying to see what the current group is going to do.

My take, in short: bottom 6 better, top 6 worse, step back at ES probable, improvement in special teams(?)
 

Kent: what's the argument for a better Calgary PP based on?

My "argument" here is something that concerns me about the Oilers. Adding better personnel to a powerplay system doesn't necessarily improve the team's PP performance.

In 2005/06, the Oilers had the troika of Pronger/Smyth/Hemsky, and managed 15th in the league on the man advantage. In other words, mediocre. They've been worse the last two years.

If the system is flawed, adding better talent, short of a Crosby or Ovechkin, may not make much of a difference in terms of results. You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit, and the Oilers issues with being overly-simplistic on the powerplay, always looking for the point shot, those don't go away just by adding different players to the mix.

Hell, some people are saying having Souray back is going to help the Edmonton powerplay this year? I think it could actually have a negative effect if the team becomes fixated on that point shot and don't look for other things. Like Dennis has said before, when was the last time the Oil had a slot play for a winger on the man advantage? Bill Guerin?

And we haven't even mentioned the coaches being unwilling to give Hemsky Lidstrom-esque minutes on the power-play, when his scoring rates have proven he's an elite PP producer. Lots of things that frustrate me about the Oiler "system".

The point here is that, could the Flames run into similar issues (i.e. different personnel, same results)? I wonder how much difference having a good 2nd man advantage unit actually makes - first glance would tend to suggest most powerplay goals are generated by the team's first unit, as there are few teams out there that can run out two productive PP groupings (Detroit would be the only one I think that could pull it off).

The flip-side to this, which is a positive from the Oiler perspective, is that the same principles seem to apply to penalty killing. It seems like, no matter what the personnel changes, the Oilers have been pretty competent historically under MacTavish at having a good penalty kill. It's my firm belief that if the system isn't a good one, special teams are doomed to fail from the outset.
 

As a postscript: proof of my theory lies in Montreal. The Canadiens powerplay sure didn't get worse when Souray left town....
 

Kent: what's the argument for a better Calgary PP based on?

For starters, based on last year's results, there's more room to go up than down. Then,

07/08 Flames PP + Giordano + Cammy + Bertuzzi + more TOI for Boyd - Huselius - (Tanguay, Conroy, Nolan who all sucked) = better in 08/09

No guarantee obviously, but I suspect both PP and PK (where they were absolutely *atrocious* in the first quarter last season) will finish the season with a higher rank than last.
 

proof of my theory lies in Montreal. The Canadiens powerplay sure didn't get worse when Souray left town....

Point taken. I think for me if it was a purely systemic issue, the first unit for the Flames would have been bad as well.

In addition, the Flames had a freakishly bad home PP percentage - one that was actually about 5 ticks below their road rate. That strikes me as some sort of freakish bad luck that shouldn't repeat (hell...most clubs PP% went up at home).
 

Point taken. I think for me if it was a purely systemic issue, the first unit for the Flames would have been bad as well.

Rather than trying to cobble together a 2nd unit, maybe they should just play their key first unit guys (Iginla and Phrankeneuf) more (say 1:30 of every 2 minute PP).

Because I'd assume those two are the guys driving the PP results.

Anyone got a pool going on how long it takes Cammalleri to take Bertuzzi's place on the top line? I'm saying it happens by the end of October.....